What if, for whatever reason the Temple in Jerusalem wasn't destroyed in 70AD. Either the rebellion was ended sooner or never started in the first place. What is the effect on Judaism and on Christianity? With no diaspora does Christianity remain a Jewish sect? What does it mean for the development of Rome and further down Islam?
Temple not destroyed
- Thread starter Arch-Angel
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Philip
Donor
What diaspora? Christianity had already spread out of Judea. Further, it was already widely differentiated from Judaism. Christians were still permitted in the synagogues, but they went with the intent to convert Jews.
I meant the development of Rabbinical Judaism as the Jewish faith become much less centralized after the destruction of the temple.
Philip
Donor
It is my understanding that Rabbinical Judaism is the descendant of Pharisaical Judaism. Sadducicetical Judaism was wiped out in the rebellions. The Zealots were also eradicated. Most of the other sects just fell by the wayside or were absorbed into others. The Pharisees blamed the Sadducees for the defilement of the Temple. They were able, perhaps with the assistance of Roman authorities, to establish themselves as the leaders of Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbinical_Judaism
This is a side issue though. If the temple survived what is the outcome?
This is a side issue though. If the temple survived what is the outcome?
Pretty significant effects for Judaism, I'd think. The diaspora is either delayed or negated entirely. This may actually damage the long-term prospects of the religion, come to think of it.
As for Christianity, the early stages of the split with Judaism were already well under way by 70AD, although it's possible that the break might not be as complete here. But early Christian leaders already recognized the larger growth potential of preaching to the wider Roman world, and I don't think that's going to change much.
The immediate impact on Rome is going to be relatively minor, in the scheme of things: either the Jews settle down under Roman rule, or they continue to chafe under imperial authority and prompt the Romans to crack down as in OTL, only later. The latter case might produce a slightly more Romanized Judaism... or, then again, it might not, given that the Jews were certainly no strangers to living within larger empires and maintaining a more or less unique cultural identity.
It's really difficult to speculate on Islam, since six centuries is a long time and a surviving Jerusalem-based Judaism would probably have significant knock-on effects. It's next to impossible to say if Islam would even emerge, and, if did, how closely it would resemble OTL Islam.
I would bet on Islam NOT existing. After so many years the butterfly effect is almost certain to prevent their prophet from being born not talking about doing anything. Christianity is certain to be greatly changed for the same reason.
Borys
Banned
Ahoj!
The Diaspora exists, Temple or no Temple. There were more Jews in Alexandria than there were in Judea ...
Remember that the Bible had to be translated into Greek, as so many Jews - living outside Judea - no longer understood Aramaic (let alone Hebrew ... ).
There even was a heretical Temple, or a pseudo-Temple in Egypt, to cut down on pilgrimage lenght.
Borys
The Diaspora exists, Temple or no Temple. There were more Jews in Alexandria than there were in Judea ...
Remember that the Bible had to be translated into Greek, as so many Jews - living outside Judea - no longer understood Aramaic (let alone Hebrew ... ).
There even was a heretical Temple, or a pseudo-Temple in Egypt, to cut down on pilgrimage lenght.
Borys
I agree on the part that Islam could very well be butterflied away.
Keep in mind that Mohammed's life and the early Muslim community were strongly affected by their interactions with the Jewish tribes in the Hijaz, and the strong Jewish influence in the Hijaz could very well have been a result of the Diaspora that followed the destruction of the Second Temple.
...and it is fairly safe to say that Judaism in the Hijaz would be strongly affected by this POD, so Islam could very well be butterflied away.
Also, it will be interesting to see exactly how the survival of the Temple (and Jewish priesthood) will affect the development of Christianity and, presuming that Constantine and the Christianisation of the Empire aren't butterflied away, what will happen to the Temple and Judea in general after the Empire becomes Christian (or at least ruled by Christians)...
Keep in mind that Mohammed's life and the early Muslim community were strongly affected by their interactions with the Jewish tribes in the Hijaz, and the strong Jewish influence in the Hijaz could very well have been a result of the Diaspora that followed the destruction of the Second Temple.
...and it is fairly safe to say that Judaism in the Hijaz would be strongly affected by this POD, so Islam could very well be butterflied away.
Also, it will be interesting to see exactly how the survival of the Temple (and Jewish priesthood) will affect the development of Christianity and, presuming that Constantine and the Christianisation of the Empire aren't butterflied away, what will happen to the Temple and Judea in general after the Empire becomes Christian (or at least ruled by Christians)...
Philip
Donor
Judaism was already widely dispersed.
No, not really. After the Council of Jerusalem, the separation is guaranteed.
Temple destroyed
yeah i would have to agree with you there, but partly. If the council had not happened you would have gotten a more a jewish christianity (in effect a sect of judaisism) and a much smaller christian church similar to what we have now. The keys here are Paul and Peter, the first who was pretty violent anti jewish christianity and the latter who was more middle of the road and didnt want to rock the boat.
yeah i would have to agree with you there, but partly. If the council had not happened you would have gotten a more a jewish christianity (in effect a sect of judaisism) and a much smaller christian church similar to what we have now. The keys here are Paul and Peter, the first who was pretty violent anti jewish christianity and the latter who was more middle of the road and didnt want to rock the boat.
Add that to the fact that Mohommed's mother and father are very likely either not existing at all or meeting different people or having sex at a different time and thus have a different baby...
Philip
Donor
Agreed. They were largely discredited since Pompey. As the nobles, they are the natural target for the Romans suppressing a revolt.
How 'bout this: WI the Sadducees somehow convince the Romans that the Pharisees are the problem. The Pharisees are squished, but the Temple stays. What becomes of Judaism? OTL, the Karaites did not show until later. Maybe we get something like the Boethusians? No afterlife and a hereditary High Priest could be interesting.
That's not quite the same thing as the diaspora, though. Christianity spread pretty quickly, but the Christian world revolved around the two poles of Rome and Constantinople for centuries. Islam, likewise, encompassed a huge part of the globe, but was ideologically centered around Mecca. If the Temple survives, I suspect it would continue to be a focal point of Judaism. There are certainly going to continue to be Jews outside of Judea, but just as there are plenty of Catholics outside of the Vatican, if the Temple survives, chances are Judaism is going to be much more centralized than it has been OTL.
"Not really" what? How does this contradict anything I said?
As I said, the split was already well underway by 70AD. By that point, Christianity had already moved beyond being a sect of Judaism. But a more Jewish-friendly, or at least less Jewish-unfriendly, Christianity was by no means out of the question by that point. According to Eusebius, the bishops of Jerusalem remained "of the circumcision" up through the Bar Kokhba revolt. If Judaism avoids the debacle of the destruction of the Temple and the later expulsion from Jerusalem, more Jewish practices and traditions may persist in Christianity, even if not necessarily on the doctrinal level.
I don't think I'd be so foolish to take you up on that bet
Islam itself is almost certainly butterflied away. What I'm not as certain about is whether or not the historical trends that helped shape Islam are going to vanish outright. There's not going to be a Muhammad, Qur'an, etc., sure, but a new faith emerging at around the same time period, in roughly the same region, with some (very) broad similarities to OTL Islam? That's a little more plausible. It's not much of a tack to hang any kind of speculation on, though....
Hecatee
Donor
Another question that arises in such a world were islam does not appear is wether or not an arabian force will arrise and attack the Sassanid and Roman Empire, defeating them and taking much of their land and much of their strenght. If not we have the two empires keep fighting with probably a roman victory on the Sassanid and a new border on, say, the Tigris or the Euphratus and control of a puppet Armenia, which allows a roman look at the west ( retaking all of N-Af, Balkans and Italy ? ), much different look from Constantinople on the Frankish kings ( probably no Emperor ), much more powerfull orthodoxy ( pope's role reduced a lot ) and thus less centralized church, stronger temporal power, and a possibly stronger empire some centuries later when turks comes. Which means no Ottoman Empire.
And comes the time of the OTL Crusades either they all take place in the East ( against tribes in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia or even Ukraine ), in the North ( Baltic area ) or a war of the West against Byzance herself... Yet with the reduced power of the Pope one could also think that his efforts to limit warfare inside of the christian world fail and that we have more frequent fightings between local nobles or european states...
Another possibility is more western nobles go to Byzance as mercenaries for the Empire and bring back more of Byzance's culture, leading to a greater knowledge of the roman time in the West.
And comes the time of the OTL Crusades either they all take place in the East ( against tribes in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia or even Ukraine ), in the North ( Baltic area ) or a war of the West against Byzance herself... Yet with the reduced power of the Pope one could also think that his efforts to limit warfare inside of the christian world fail and that we have more frequent fightings between local nobles or european states...
Another possibility is more western nobles go to Byzance as mercenaries for the Empire and bring back more of Byzance's culture, leading to a greater knowledge of the roman time in the West.
Philip
Donor
Philo put the Jewish population of Egypt at 1 000 000 ( 12% of the population) There were another 200 000 in Asia Minor. Virtually every city around the Mediterranean had a Jewish population. Judaism was already decentralized. The Temple provided a focus for the worship, but it did not offer any real centralized control of Judaism. The Pharisees were already the dominate faction, and their centers of power were the synagogues, not the Temple.
Sure it was. Read the writings of St Paul. Read the Didache. Read Sts Barnabus and Ignatius. They only hope they offer for the Jews is to reject the Pharisaical tradition and accept Christianity as the true Judaism.
Yes. This indicates that he was of Jewish descent, just as most Christians in Judea were. It does not indicate that he on good terms with the followers of Pharisaical Judaism.
Virtually impossible. If the Temple survives, then the sacrifices of the Temple survive. Read the Book of Hebrews. The sacrifices were utterly rejected by Christians. The aforementioned Council of Jerusalem predates the destruction of the Temple by 20 years, and it already was rejecting Jewish practices. Again, read St Paul, especially the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians. He replaces the quintessential Jewish practices of circumcision and Passover with Baptism and Eucharist. Again, this is before the destruction of the Temple.
If the Temple survives, I think it would drive Christianity and Judaism apart even faster than OTL.
Philip
Donor
There would need to be another unifying force. It is quite possible that some ATL religion (there were lots of prophets in Arabia at that time). It could be Judaism. It could be a strong king. Whatever it is, there needs to be a unifying force.
The Romans negotiated very generous peace terms with the Persians after the Battle of Nineveh.
North Africa was already in their hands. Before the assassination of Maurice, the Romans hard largely checked the Avars and Slavs around AD 600. Being freed of the Persian threat, they would quickly reestablished their control of the Balkans. Italy is probably a stretch.
Not sure about this. The Pope was already attempting to exert temporal power of the West. He crowned Charlemagne to counter the emperors in Constantinople. It seems likely that a more powerful New Rome would only encourage the Pope to establish a Western Empire.
No Islam already means no Ottoman Empire. The Turkish invasion would probably be less successful. The Persians would have recovered somewhat -- probably under another dynasty -- and would have absorbed the brunt of the invasion.
Without Islamic (or ATL equivalent) control of Jerusalem, there will be no Crusades. The Crusades were based on the idea of an armed pilgrimage. The Pope would have a hard time selling a pilgrimage into pagan lands. As long as the Romans allow Christians from Western Europe to travel to the Holy Land, there will be no Crusades.
The knowledge is likely to be spread by merchants.
But that, right there, is a major difference from OTL. Even without real centralization, Judea is going to loom large throughout Judaism. A better (though obviously imperfect) analogue might be the role of modern Israel to modern Jews: it factors heavily into the equation, even though it doesn't dominate it to the exclusion of all else.
Regardless, even the demographics are going to be different without the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem. Again, this doesn't mean that there won't be a large population of Jews outside of the city, but the exact breakdown is clearly going to vary.
I'm quite aware. And I'm still not entirely sure with what, precisely, you're disagreeing. Leaving aside the question of whether or not Christianity shakes out in precisely the same way (just because Paul and company had said their piece doesn't necessarily mean they're going to have the last word in this ATL), there's still plenty of room for greater toleration between the two faiths. Even something along the lines of the early relationship between Muslims and Jews in Islam-dominated regions OTL would be a marked improvement.
*sigh* Again, that is, in and of itself, significant. If the Jewish presence in Jerusalem remains past 130AD or so, there are guaranteed to be a larger percentage of Christians who openly acknowledge Jewish descent. And while, barring a complete disaster that pretty much dooms Christianity's chances at becoming a major world religion, they will always be a distinct minority, their location and position are going to have an impact on the faith at some level.
I think we're talking at cross purposes here: you seem intent on assuming I'm unfamiliar with the Council of Jerusalem, or the Pauline epistles, or, indeed, the entire thrust of first and second century Christianity, despite the fact that I've repeatedly said otherwise. You also have repeatedly ignored what I've said said. I'll repeat myself: "the early stages of the split with Judaism were already well under way by 70AD." Also, "Christianity had already moved beyond being a sect of Judaism."
The beliefs and practices of Judaism and Christianity had already diverged substantially. Christianity wasn't going to be resubsumed into the larger Jewish world any more than the Jews were going to convert en masse to Christianity. But there's more to the story than a black-and-white, binary, "with-us-or-against-us" dualism. I thought it would have been blindingly obvious that Jews and Christians weren't going to see eye-to-eye on things, but there's a substantial amount of space in between there that would have allowed for more friendly, or at least less hostile, relations between the two groups, even after 70AD.
This is also possible, I suppose. My rationale is that the Jews don't quite fall into the persona non grata position they occupied in the Roman Empire, which makes the political and social need for early Christians to separate themselves from Judaism less pressing. Of course, early Christians weren't exactly any more beloved in the wider Roman world at the time, so it's entirely possible, perhaps even probable, that a "more respectable" Judaism would still want to keep its distance from Christianity, even if the opposite were less true.
Last I checked, Judaism didn't emerge circa 600AD.
Jokes aside, I don't think the similarities are very significant. Unless we're postulating a much more missionary form of Judaism, it's not likely to fill the same social vacuum as Islam did. I'd put Christianity as a more likely option, and, even then, I don't think it's that likely. Of course, there's also the possibility of a non-Abrahamic derived faith, or a modified and revitalized older faith (Zoroastrianism?) jumping into that void.
Agreed 100%. I tend to think that there's a better than average chance than some kind of unifying force is going to bring together Arabia, simply because it would strike me as historically unusual for this not to happen. But so much will have changed by that point, I think it's almost meaningless to speculate.